By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – Recently, the federal government posted an appointment opportunity on the Privy Council website for the chairperson of the CRTC and its vice-chairperson.
To the dismay of some, working knowledge of both official languages is not a requirement.
In Ottawa jargon, the post reads: “Proficiency in both official languages would be preferred.”
In question period today, the Bloc Québécois raised the issue: “For them (the Liberals), it is okay to appoint someone who doesn’t speak French to oversee a whole segment of our culture,” said Martin Champoux, the Bloc’s critic for Canadian Heritage, in French, after stating that French…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – A motion was adopted in the House of Commons today to set a time limit on the debate of Bill C-18 to move it past the second reading stage.
If this sounds familiar it is because earlier this month, a motion was adopted to limit the time spent on second reading debate for Bill C-11. When the motion was passed for C-11, the bill had been debated in the House four times, whereas C-18 has been debated once.
Minister of Canadian Heritage Pablo Rodriguez (above) argued this motion was needed because they have already seen the Conservatives…
Continue Reading
OTTAWA – The Heritage Committee will continue to hear witnesses on C-11 this week, starting today from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Tomorrow, the committee will meet from 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., and on Wednesday, the committee will meet from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
The witness lists for today’s meeting can be found here and here. The witness lists for tomorrow and Wednesday are to be determined.
Update: Updated notices of meeting for tomorrow (May 31) with the names of witnesses set to appear can found here, here and here. Among those listed are Kevin Desjardins, president of…
Continue Reading
By Howard Law
HERITAGE MINISTER PABLO RODRIGUEZ has promised a policy directive to the CRTC with cabinet instructions on implementing Bill C-11.
Point number one in the new directive should be making the certification of Canadian content more relevant to the Canadian experience by including qualitative judgments of national subject matter in the video content. I posted about this recently, as have others. The signal from the minister is that he has an open mind to it.
Point number two is to direct the CRTC to reappraise the existing regulatory supports for the money-losing local news industry.
Point number three is what to do…
Continue Reading
By Len St-Aubin
BILL C-11, THE ONLINE STREAMING ACT, like its predecessor Bill C-10, demonstrates a massive lack of understanding of the internet, online media, and the ways Canadians use both.
The government says it’s about fairness, that C-11 will merely require streaming ‘web giants’ like Netflix, Disney, Amazon, YouTube to “pay their fair share” and contribute to CanCon financing. So do its supporters — producers of subsidized CanCon for traditional radio and television, who stand to benefit. In fact, Bill C-11 tries to force-fit virtually all online media into the straight jacket of radio and TV regulation by ‘modernizing’ the…
Continue Reading
Also disappointed wholesale rates will not be reversed
By Ahmad Hathout
INDEPENDENT INTERNET SERVICE providers said they are “encouraged” by the direction the federal government is taking in its proposal Thursday for a new policy direction to the telecom regulator, despite the government also denying a request to overturn the Internet access costs on which the direction focuses.
“They’re going to have a very clear roadmap for how the government expects them to regulate this industry,” Matt Stein, CEO of Distributel and the Competitive Network Operators of Canada, a trade group for independent ISPs, said in an interview, adding he…
Continue Reading
Not the legacy an outgoing chair would want
By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – The federal government had until tomorrow to respond to the cabinet appeal of the CRTC’s decision on wholesale rates, in which the CRTC voided its own decision and made interim rates (from 2016) permanent and today, on May 26, they issued a proposed policy direction in response to the three appeals from stakeholders.
The language in the backgrounder issued with the proposed policy direction seems to lay severe blame on the CRTC’s recent decisions:
requiring large companies to continue to give access to competitors at regulated rates so…
Continue Reading
The new direction also axes ‘market forces,’ a remnant from the 2006 directive
By Ahmad Hathout
OTTAWA – A new telecommunications policy directive to the CRTC proposed by Innovation Canada today has replaced the 2006 directive that focused on market forces and added an emphasis on improved wholesale rates, but the department at the same time denied a petition to reverse a CRTC decision that did not review lower rates.
There is no mention in the new proposed directive of a requirement for the CRTC to view decisions that allow for market forces to the greatest extent possible, which was central…
Continue Reading
By Denis Carmel
OTTAWA – Last week, on May 19, the CRTC issued a decision to reverse a previous decision and cancel penalties worth $250,000 against two companies delivering ads on computers without the consent of their owners, contrary to the Anti-Spam Act.
In 2015, investigators from the Commission identified five IP addresses linked to Datablocks and Sunlight Media Networks “that appeared to be redirecting users to webpages hosting exploit kits.”
“An ‘exploit kit’ is a collection of multiple exploits that affect unsecure software applications. Each exploit kit is customized to search for specific vulnerabilities and execute the corresponding exploit for the…
Continue Reading
GATINEAU – Complaints to the government’s Spam Reporting Centre (SRC) between Oct. 1, 2021 and March 31, 2022 totalled over 167,939 or around 6,459 per week, according to the CRTC’s latest Enforcing Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) report.
Of the total complaints, around 4,069 were submitted through the SRC’s online form while the rest were submitted by email.
The reasons for complaints submitted through the SRC’s online form include lack of consent (94%), identification of sender (39%), deceptive marketing practices (33%), other (20%) and software and malware (3%), the report says. (Please see chart above.)
The sources of spam reported through the online…
Continue Reading
